U.S. Faulted on School Policies In Muslim Nations

By Mary Ann Zehr

Washington

While witnesses were criticizing the Bush administration for its security policies before the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks last week, analysts across town were knocking the administration for the education policies it promotes in Islamic countries.

A four-member panel addressed the issue of educating children in Muslim countries during a March 23 forum at the Cato Institute, a think tank supportive of limited government involvement in problem-solving.

Current U.S. strategies to combat the teaching of radical Islamic fundamentalism are ineffective, asserted Andrew Coulson, a senior fellow in education policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a conservative-leaning think tank in Midland, Mich. Instead, he argued at the event, and in a recent policy analysis published by the Cato Institute, the government would achieve better results by supporting the development...